Of Comedy and Agony

A play of no small emotional complexity

Alan Ayckbourn has no better institutional friend in America than Connecticut's Westport Country Playhouse, which has staged nine of his 78 plays to date. The latest one is the company's current production, "Things We Do for Love," a four-character comedy from 1997 that is rarely performed in this country and which I saw for the first time ever on Saturday. The reason why it doesn't get done much is obvious: "Things We Do for Love" calls for a three-story set, a feat of scenic trickery...